Gifted Grifter Ch. 04

Gifted Grifter #4: Rental Property

After my trip to Vegas, I had enough cash to last me a couple of months—so, where should I go to spend it? I needed some time to myself to think about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do—besides seducing women, of course.

The place where I often went in the past when I wanted time to think was the family cottage in lake country, but after my encounter with Lauren, the traveling sales rep, I definitely did not want to stay there. But, I thought, there are three lakes and lots of cottages; maybe I could rent one. I looked up lake country real estate and found four different firms with offices in the region, all of them offering sale or rent. I gave them each a call and inquired about renting a place for a week or so with immediate occupancy; all said they had timeshares or other options to choose from. It was not yet peak season, so I figured I'd have good odds of finding something. I decided to drive up and see for myself, although I reserved a room at the Lake Inn as backup.

The first office had three agents; an older guy showed me a listing and offered to take me to see any one I wanted, but I wasn't overly excited about any of them.

The second office was busier, with four agents in it. A reasonably attractive female about my age helped me out; there were one or two places here I might be interested to see, but I wanted to look at the other places first.

I could tell at first glance that the third office was much less organized than the first two. There were papers everywhere, and although there were only three agents there was a din from people talking simultaneously—all three were on the phone at once. A middle aged-woman with excessively high, fake blonde hair looked up from her phone and waved me over, but I wasn't about to talk to her. In the back corner, facing the wall, was a petite femine form with a cascading mass of shoulder-length red hair. She glanced towards the door to see who had come in, still talking on the phone: I could see she was young, no more than 25, and gorgeous. SHE was going to be my real estate agent.

Glancing around the office, I noticed a counter full of property fliers with three business card holders on it. I sauntered towards it and read the names on the cards in the holders: "James Noonan," "Ellen DiNardo," and "Erin McCarthy." Only one female Irish name; pretty good odds on which one belonged to the redhead. Of course, there might be another agent that wasn't here, so I couldn't assume anything; I'd have to let her tell me her name. I grabbed a couple of her cards and shoved them in my pocket.

I strolled to the back of the office, nonchalantly touching my temple to turn on my mindreading sunglasses. The redhead's thoughts had nothing to do with real estate—she was arguing with her boyfriend. I could tell that this was a very common occurrence, and she was fed up with it; she had already decided that she was leaving him was still working out when and how. Oooh, a hot young redhead AND in a vulnerable state. This could work out even better than I thought.

She noticed me walking her direction and hastily whispered in the phone "I've got a customer I think, I've got to go. We'll deal with this LATER."

She hung up and swung her chair around to face me, putting on a smile that was friendly but could not completely mask the turmoil inside. She was wearing a green skirt cut well above the knee with a matching jacket and a white blouse with a moderately low neckline—low enough to show lots of skin below the neck, not low enough that her breasts were spilling out. Nuts.

"Hi, is your name..." I paused, allowing her to think to herself 'my name is Erin,' to confirm my suspicion before continuing "Erin McCarthy?"

"Yes, I'm Erin," she replied, wondering how I knew her name.

"A friend of mine recommended you," I lied.

She was thinking 'who could have recommended me? I've been here almost a year and barely sold anything. Maybe I'm finally getting somewhere in this business.'

"I'm looking to rent a cottage or something for a week or so—I need immediate occupancy, and I can pay cash," I continued, flashing her a wad of bills.

Her mind was off and running. "Cash? Immediate occupancy? That would be a minimum $500 commission, today. Boy could I use that money right now."

"Oh, absolutely, uh," she said.

"Mark," was the name I was using at the time.

"Mark, nice to meet you," she said, standing and shaking my hand. "We have a number of properties to choose from." She went to fetch a big book with pictures and descriptions of properties. WAY too slow.

"Wow, that's a lot. Tell you what: I'm looking for a place on the lake," I said, telling her I preferred the far end of the lake farthest from where we were if possible, "available today for a total cost under $10,000." I actually didn't want to spend more than 3-5K, but since 10K was the threshold for federal reporting of cash transactions, I definitely wouldn't go that high. "Can you pick out three or four and take me to see them?"

My glasses told me she was a little taken aback—I was disrupting her usual workflow. I also don't know to this day if it was an unusual request to be taken to see rentals like that, but I had seen a Scion xB in the parking lot painted over with the company logo and colors—Scions make kick-ass billboards—so I figured it was possible.

"Sure," she said, dreaming dreams of a quick commission. "Give me a minute to do a quick search." She sat at her desk and pulled up a property search tool on her computer. Entering a few qualifiers as search parameters, she came up with a list of eight possible matches, which she printed out.

"Would you like to look at these in the book?" she asked.

I glanced at the printout, asking "These should all be pretty close together, right?"

She nodded, "Yeah, pretty close.

"OK, I'd like to look at these four," I said, dropping the two most expensive and the two cheapest from the list, "and I'll pick one."

"OK, we can do that. Let me get the keys to the car." She went and talked briefly to one of the other agents—who, humorously, was startled that she needed the car—then came back with the keys, picked up her purse, and said "Let's go."

I sat in the front passenger seat while Erin drove. "So have you been doing this a long time?" I asked, "my friend tells me you're very good."

"I've been doing this for not quite a year now," she answered. She was thinking 'it's the best offer I got after graduation from college, even though it's not what I went to school for,' and she was feeling good about my complimenting her skill.

"So you are just looking for a week of vacation?" she asked qualifying my as a customer.

"Well, actually," I said truthfully, "I'm looking for a week now, but I expect to be in the area somewhat regularly in the future, and I'm going to be needing a rental of some sort every time."

'Multiple commissions!' she thought. 'I've got to be sure to find this guy what he wants.' She already had what I wanted, I thought, but unlike with Heather in Vegas it wasn't for sale.

"Really? I'm sorry, it's none of my business—it's just an unusual situation" she commented.

"Well, I'm not an ordinary guy," I said. As I hoped, that stirred her thoughts about guys in general and what she liked in them. I saw she dreamed of a mysterious stranger sweeping her off her feet and taking her away from the small town that she hated living in. I might be able to take care of the first part of that, I thought.

"I can't tell you what I do, it's top secret." Good-she was intrigued. "I can tell you I used to work for the Department of Defense," which was true, "but I can't tell you who I work for now." Because I don't work for anyone except myself, I thought. "My being up here, though—it has to be low key. I'm often working undercover, using assumed names. I pay everything cash to avoid leaving a paper trail should someone try to track my movements."

"Wow," she said. She was eating up the cloak-and-dagger talk.

"Erin," I said, looking at her with false earnesty, "I need someone who can keep a secret. Someone I can call on short notice to find me a place and not question if I give you a different name than the one you know me by. I'll pay cash up front every time. If necessary, I'll pay extra commission if I can trust you."

Poor Erin. To use a fishing analogy, she had swallowed the hook. I was a mystery man and a recurring source of much-needed commissions. She didn't know me, but I didn't seem creepy to her (whew). She would bend over backwards to get me as a customer. Perhaps that would be one of the things I would have her do to earn it.

"No, that would not be necessary," she said. "Our standard commissions are fine. And I certainly can understand why a man in your position would require the utmost in confidentiality." As she said that, she pulled the car off the road by the first of the properties she would show me. Now free to look at me more directly, she turned to me with wide green eyes and said "If you pay cash up front, I can guarantee to protect your privacy."

"Thanks," I said, "I knew you were the kind of person I can trust. And I appreciate your trusting me." That was a calculated comment. She hadn't thought about the fact that I was asking her to trust me by keeping my identity secret when she answered, she was thinking about the commissions. But now that I framed it that way, the fact that she had already promised me confidentiality meant that she did trust me, so in her thinking I was now a man she could trust. Good—trust up meant guard down. We got out and she went to show me the place.

High heels and sandy soil don't mix. The land around the lakes area was very loose and sandy, deposits from what had once been a much larger lake. As Erin walked down a slight incline towards the cottage, the heel of one of her apparently-mandatory-for-female-real-estate-agents pumps sunk into the soil and she turned her ankle. It was a perfect opportunity—I cavalierly reached out and caught her stumbling figure in my arms. I don't think she would have fallen and she didn't seriously injure herself, but her thoughts told me that her ankle didn't feel right. As for me, I was not about to pass up the opportunity. I held on to her, awkward position notwithstanding, like if I let go she would instantly fall to the floor.

"Are you all right?" I said with exaggerated concern. "Looks like you turned your ankle really badly there. Is it sprained?"

She didn't know. Since I was holding on to her anyway, she reached an arm over my shoulders for support her while she tried walking. I put my arm around her slender waist, and nonchalantly held the hand of the arm on my shoulder while she tried putting weight on the foot. She took a few steps; I stepped along with her. She was able to walk and put weight on it, but her thoughts told me it felt strange. She decided she was able to continue with the showing. I pretended not to notice her subtle attempts to disengage from me for as long as I could without it becoming obvious that I was just trying to keep touching her.

"I'm sorry this wouldn't have happened if I hadn't dragged you all the way out here. Let's go back and get you some medical attention."

'No!' her mind screamed, 'I don't want to lose the sale.'

"No, no," she said, "I'll be fine. Let's have a look at this place."

"High heels like that are pretty, but they're not very good for walking on sand," I commented. "Why don't you at least take them off and go barefoot"—it being summer, she wasn't wearing hosiery—"you're liable to twist it even worse if you keep walking around with them on."

That made sense to her, so that's what she did. And although men like high heels because of the way the accentuate womens' legs, for many women bare feet are an erogenous zone. Walking around barefoot would, if nothing else, make being with me seem more homey and less professional. Any my intentions for Erin were decidedly unprofessional.

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The first place was kind of dump, it didn't take long to reject it. As we headed back to the car, I said "The ankle you twisted was your driving ankle, wasn't it? And you're not supposed to drive barefoot. I know its against the rules, but at least while we're going from property to property, why don't I do the driving and you give me directions."

Her thoughts told me that indeed, it was against all the rules to have the customer drive. But again she couldn't argue with my logic; she had already decided (with my help) that she trusted me, and she knew that with the disorganization in her office, no one else from her company would see her and ever know the wiser.

"Well, OK, at least until it's had time to heal up a little." she said. Actually, it was likely that if anything it would start to swell after just sitting for a while, but that would just work in my favor. She tossed me the keys and started giving me turn-by-turn directions to the next place.

The second place was pretty close by. Erin got out of the car and walked barefoot; her ankle seemed to be causing her more discomfort now, she was favoring her left—but she refused assistance. She went to the back door and entered a combination on the key vault that was hanging on the doorknob, then with the key that was inside let me into the cottage. It was much better—I'd take it if I didn't prefer one of the others.

"Okay, let's see the next one," I said.

Lakes often have very irregular shapes, which means that the roads that service the lakefront properties are often snaky, winding ones. If there isn't a circle drive around the lake—and here there wasn't—it can make for some very odd road configurations that make it easy to get lost—and Erin did. I'm sure the fact that I feeding her reams of made up spy-story stuff about myself helped distract her; having spent a lot of time in the area growing up, I knew she should have told me to take three successive left turns, but she missed the third. I of course pretended I had no idea where I was going.

"Wait...Oh my god... this doesn't look right." she interrupted.

"It appears we are heading away from the lake," I observed.

"We must have missed a turn somewhere; can you do a U-turn? Oh my god, this is embarrassing," she said.

I pulled the car over. "Now, don't get all upset about it," I said, tapping her on the thigh. "These are some screwed-up subdivisions. We'll figure it out." I looked at her through my glasses while I was talking; the thigh is very close to the pussy, especially if the thigh is bare because the owner is wearing a short skirt, and touching a woman there will usually raise her defenses immediately. She did instinctively respond to the fact that I had touched her on the thigh, but I had done it quickly and lightly enough that she had not interpreted it as a grope. Good, another step closer the ultimate objective.

I did a U-turn and went back where we came. Now flustered, she was disoriented and missed the turn again.

"Wait...oh no, this isn't it. I can't believe this, I'm supposed to be showing you properties, and instead I've gotten us both lost." She put her face in her hands and fought back tears.

Tears are a grifter's friend. I pulled over again, put one arm around her shoulder and with the other held her left upper arm. "There, there, it's OK," I said in as soothing a tone as I could. I saw a few turns we didn't make back there, I'm sure we just need to find the right one. Is there a map in this car?" I asked, leaning over open the glovebox, making sure I lightly made contact with her legs as I reached. There wasn't. "Oh well, let's try again," I said. She just stared at the floor.

I turned around and headed back. When I got to the street we should have turned on the first time, I said "There's a street on the left there, is that the one we want?"

Erin craned her head to read the sign, mostly obscured by large bushes. "Yes, that's the turn we missed. A left here." Her relief was palpable.

It wasn't far to the cottage once we got on the right road. I pulled off and parked. She got out of the car looking sheepish after having gotten lost. She was favoring her left leg even more noticeably now.

"You need to wrap that," I said as we walked towards the place, "looks like its swelling. I doubt they'll have ice, but let's at least put a cold water compress on it while I look around."

Even before we were inside I knew I'd take this one—it had what I was looking for, and it was getting late—it was already 4:30 and we still had to drive back to the real estate office to get the paperwork started.

But first Erin. When we went in, there was an old couch against the wall and I told her to sit down on it. Between the physical discomfort and her emotional stress, she wasn't about to argue. I went in the back, checked around the bathroom and bedroom areas until I found a towel, then soaked it in the coldest water I could get.

I came back out to the living room with the towel. I knelt by her sore foot; she lifted it towards me. I gently touched all around her ankle to see if there was any place where it was especially tender; there wasn't. Then I gently wrapped the ankle of her delicate, slightly-freckled leg with the cold wet towel. As I wrapping the towel around them, I gently caressed her lower calves. I didn't really think that the wet towel was cold enough to do anything about any swelling, I just wanted to appear as concerned as possible.

"I think I'll take this one," I said. "But I notice its getting late; will your office even still be open?"

"I have a key, that's no problem," she said, "but I should make a few phone calls." She pulled out her cell phone and called the office telling them she would be in after hours to close a deal. That went fast. Then she got up and kind of hobbled towards the back hallway before dialing her next call—the boyfriend, I was sure. She tried whispering at first, but they had been in a fight when I interrupted; I'm sure he wasn't too happy about having been left hanging for this time now. In short order she forgot that I could hear and raised her voice. I heard her say things like "I've got a job to do," "Why are you being such an asshole," then louder she said "If I lose this sale because of you I'll....I'll be home when I get home!" Finally, she yelled "Well, maybe I won't come home at all!" Then she slammed the phone shut and stood there glowering for a minute...and then the tears came.

Poor Erin. First she had been arguing with her boyfriend, then she'd hurt her ankle, then she'd gotten us lost, and now her boyfriend was apparently throwing some sort of ultimatum at her. She put her face in her hands again and started crying full bore.

"I'm sorry," I said as I walked over towards her. "I feel like this is my fault for making you work late." I put my arms around her and drew her into me so she could cry on my shoulder—what better thing for a woman that's crying than a nice male shoulder to cry on? She had to cry her feelings out—even if she had wanted to pull away, she wouldn't have been able until she had herself under better control. My shoulder must have felt comforting, because when I held her floodgates really opened. After a time I started to gently stroke her soft, lovely red hair and gave her a kiss on the top of the head.

In time she cried it out and only sniffles remained. But she kept her face buried in my shoulder where I couldn't see it until she had herself under full control—a real estate agent isn't supposed to cry on the customer's shoulder.

When she felt sufficiently back in control, she stood up, looked up at me and started to say "I'm sor...." That's as far as she got, because as soon as she opened her mouth I had mashed my lips up against hers. She was startled at first and sort of passively accepted my kiss but didn't pull away. I could see in my glasses that she was thinking that I was the sort of mysterious guy she liked, that I was being a lot nicer to her than her boyfriend, and that she had already broken half of the rules of appropriate real estate agent conduct; it wasn't going to be any worst to kiss me, too.